When Matthias Jabs isn’t on tour with the Scorpions, he is back home and driving his favorite car, a 1995 Porsche 993.

“That’s the last air intake Porsche they ever made before they went to watercooling,” he says, giving the Porsche a perfect 10. “To me it’s a 10 out of 10 because I just love the car. It’s 20 years old now, but it’s like you drive it, it makes you feel, ‘Yeah, I’m really driving the car.’ You really have to shift gears and you have to go around the corners and you really feel what you’re doing, so that’s why I love it.”

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Even though it’s more than 20 years old, Jabs says he hasn’t had any problems with the Porsche and it has been extremely reliable.

“Of course the car is sitting a lot of time in the garage because we’re touring so much, so you have to have a little device that keeps the battery alive. For me that’s the fun car, it’s not an everyday car. We drive [Mercedes models]. We have an SUV and we have the S Coupe, the new one, which is an excellent car. It’s loaded with the head-up display, and it’s full Internet, you have a large screen. So that’s like a comfy car for everyday.”

Jabs also has a 2014 Mercedes AMG-badged S-Class Coupe. “It’s a perfect car. There’s nothing to complain. They’re bringing out a convertible, which I probably will be getting. That would be the perfect car. So this one is 9 out of 10, because a convertible would be 10 out of 10.”

The technology Mercedes offers makes it a great ride. “It’s all-wheel drive, it’s fast and it’s just great. It’s close to perfection I would say.”

At the moment, Jabs has three cars that he doesn’t get to drive much since the band has been on the road celebrating its 50th anniversary. Each car has a purpose: a sports car, the S-Class, and an SUV for practical purposes.

2015 Mercedes ML 500

Rating: 9

“Sometimes I need to transport things, like guitars, put a speaker cabinet in there, an amp, going to the studio,” he says. “It’s very comfortable, you sit high up.”

Jabs says it’s great for long-distance driving, which he does often, going between his Hannover home and the guitar store he runs in Munich. “That’s about 400 miles, so you don’t feel them, you cruise down and it’s all easy. That’s why I’m taking guitars sometimes and bringing them from A to B. That car is perfect for that. It’s like a super comfortable SUV.”

Jabs says he’s not loyal to the cars just because they’re German. He considers them the top cars, period.

“You put your life when you’re driving and especially when you’re driving fast, and in Germany we are still able to drive very fast because parts of the Autobahn still don’t have a speed limit,” he says. “So you want the car to be safe and reliable. So I tend to get the Mercedes and the Porsche because to me those are the best cars.”

Since Jabs is often on the road, he drives other brands when he rents cars, and that’s his way of testing other models. “I tested them, but, Mercedes and Porsche are just better,” he says. “They’re reliable, they’re safe. They’re fast. They never really get that old because the everyday cars we exchange at least once per year. Only the Porsche I keep because it’s like a collector’s car.”

Jabs doesn’t plan on ever selling the 993. “I would never sell it. I’m rather thinking about getting the same model as a convertible as well. I should have done that years ago, but I want to look for one that is absolutely right. I want one in the right color with the right leather interior, in very good condition. And that’s hard to find. But I don’t have time to look for it every day,” he says, with a laugh. “So it’s been difficult to look for a Porsche convertible at the moment.”

Car he learned to drive in

During high school as a 17-year-old in Hannover, Germany, Jabs went to driving school and learned in a Volkswagen Beetle. “I think they were called the 1302, that was the driving school Beetle, 1.3 liter engine, and later on they came out as 1303,” he recalls.

He got his license in 1973 and figures he learned to drive in a 1972 or 1973 Beetle. “It was easy back then, a couple hours and they gave you a license,” Jabs says. “Not much traffic back then. It was different to today. You could park anywhere, not much traffic. Those were the good times.”

Jabs bought his first car, a 1961 Volkswagen Beetle convertible, when he was 16 prior to getting his license. It cost him 500 marks, which he says was about $250. “It was extremely cheap. Of course I couldn’t register it. It was just sitting there,” he says. “The number plates were from the previous owner. It was a good idea that it was stolen three days later. It was probably the best idea because I could have never registered it. But I bought it and I was able to buy it. It is probably not possible today that somebody who doesn’t have a license can buy a car.”

Photo: Udo Weger

Jabs made money giving guitar lessons to other students, teaching two or three lessons a day after school. “That adds up, so I saved the money and I could buy the car,” he says.

When Jabs was 11, his uncle would let him drive. “He gave me his car, and I was going around the block with my sister. This is unthinkable today. It was a crazy thing when you think about it,” he says, laughing. He recalls his uncle’s car being an interesting one to drive. “He had one of those funny cars like a DAF, that was I think a Dutch brand. Later on I think Volvo and DAF, they make trucks still, but they had this car where you didn’t need to shift gears, it wasn’t like an automatic clutch, you had just forward and reverse,” he says. “So I put it into forward and hit the gas. It was a slow car too, so I was driving around the block. He just let me drive it for some reason, this crazy uncle.”

Jabs says the car was typical of the size of European cars back then. “It’s a very tiny car like the cars used to be. They were very small in the ‘50s and ‘60s. This was one of those mini cars,” he says,

After Jabs’ first car was stolen, he bought the same model, another Beetle convertible. It was also a 1961, which was about a decade old by the time he purchased it. The first one was light blue and the second one was a mint color. “I always liked convertibles and they were just cheap back then and very easy to maintain,” he says. “If they wouldn’t start, you could just push it and jump in. The soft top was mechanical, so you were releasing two hooks while driving and then just throw it behind you. There was nothing electric on this car. It was so simple but therefore so easy to maintain. I could fix things myself.”

In 1979 Jabs bought his first splurge car, a new convertible Mercedes 280 SL, after he joined the Scorpions. Up until then, he was still driving a Beetle, albeit a newer model. “I bought the Mercedes convertible, the sports car. Silver with red leather interior and a black soft top. It looked very nice,” he says. “It was a year or two years after I joined.”

But since the band was always on tour, he didn’t get to enjoy the new Mercedes much.

Photo: Oliver Rath

“All my cars have always been sitting in the garage for plenty of time, since we were touring like crazy, and we still are,” he says

Jabs says he has gone 4 million kilometers in the cars he’s owned. And he isn’t counting rentals. “It means 100 times around the world. With all the cars I owned, because I know from the paperwork how many miles I put on each car before I sold it again,” he says.

“I was surprised, that still even though we are touring so much, still I drove that many kilometers or miles — and accident-free by the way. I haven’t had an accident in my life.”

Favorite road trip

His absolute favorite drive is from Germany to Italy, crossing the Alps. “That’s a fantastic road trip. It’s the main German Autobahn going north to south and then you cross the border to either Austria or Switzerland,” he says. “Then you cross through that country and there they have lots of mountains already and then you go through one of those passes.”

On that drive Jabs takes Brenner Pass through the Alps. “When you pass through that, and then you cut through Italy, you come to that area where Italy meets France and that’s a fantastic road trip,” he says.

The band is back in the United States starting May 6 in North Carolina. For information about the Scorpions please visit the-scorpions.com.

In May, the Scorpions are back for another U.S. leg of their world tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary. They will be in Charlotte; Nashville; St. Louis; Las Vegas; El Paso; Albuquerque; Pryor, Oklahoma; and San Antonio. Visit this site for more details.